Infosys Revises Visa Fraud Denial Strategy as Stock Plunges

As public outrage against Infosys rose and its stock plunged following yesterday's CBS News report that gave the world its first opportunity to see and hear Infosys employee and whistleblower Jay Palmer, Infosys executives have made a subtle but remarkable shift in their denial strategy. Infosys in one day has gone from a denial of having a corporate "practice" of evading the law in conjunction with the B-1 visa program, to denying only that it had a corporate "policy" to that effect. And it has finally admitted that violations to U.S. law have indeed occurred.

Any allegation or assertion that there is or was a corporate practice of evading the law in conjunction with the B-1 visa program is simply not accurate, and we will vigorously defend the company against any false allegation to that effect.

Any allegation or assertion that there is or was a corporate policy of evading the law in conjunction with the B-1 visa program is simply untrue.

What this means, of course, is that Infosys finally recognizes that it can no longer deny its rampant practice of engaging in visa fraud. Its strategy now is to base its denial on the premise that it didn't have a formal "policy" in place to evade the law.

It's a subtle distinction that the casual observer is unlikely to notice, and it's a distinction I've written about in the past (see my post, "Irresponsible Claim: U.S. Firms Have 'Policies' to Displace American Workers"). That Infosys is now making that distinction in the wake of the CBS News broadcast is incredibly telling. One can only imagine the damage-control meeting in the bowels of Infosys that yielded that change to the company line.

There has never been any policy or scheme to circumvent the B-1 program, we have always adhered to the highest level of corporate governance, legal and ethical ways of running a business. As and when we have heard of any kind of violation, we have taken very strict action, including very strict disciplinary action, including dismissal.

The damage that needed to be controlled included a 13 percent plunge in Infosys's stock price yesterday, the biggest drop in three years. I told you this was going to be a wild ride. Stay tuned.

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You make a point about mocking while you mock US government officials for being cheap when in actuality you should be congratulating them for their unpatriotic effort to keep sub standard workers in the US as cheap labor for pure profit.

The thing that makes me laugh out of all of this is how you hear quite often that America has one of the best educational systems in place and how people come here just to get a quality education but with the current rate of unemployment these major corporations just can't seem to find the talent that they need while at the same rate you have fresh graduates out of these colleges who can't find a job.

Can someone explain how an education from a third world country is worth displacing American workers who have the same education from the US other than the fact they can get a worker who will do sub standard work for sub standard pay to make a profit. This disregards the fact that many have fake degrees or lie about experience just to have a "sponsor" vouch for these kinds of people knowing full well that the information provided on these bogus resumes are false or inaccurate....

The lobbyist of corporate America or for any organization should be considered illegal as it is simply a group of sociopaths. The sad part out of all of this are the political parties which are no different than the corporations who try to bend the laws of government out of personal gain and self interest. These political parties are nothing more than a breeding ground for this kind of behavior.

While it's not my intent to digress from the topic, I think it's time we get some facts straight -

Third world country -A term that was coined back during the days of cold war and carries little or no relevance to the current situation. Request you to take a look at the Goldman Sachs or any economic report and I hope you will understand your concept of third world is pretty outdated not-to-say, pejorative.

Third world education & Fake degrees - While the stories of abusing visa might be true, please try to understand the fact (or may be just google to see the hiring process) that organizations like Capgemini, Accenture, IBM, Deloitte, Sapient, Cognizant, Infosys, TCS etc. don't really fit in the concept of 'sweat shops' with little or no corporate ethics. Please refer to the hiring and background verification process that the above mentioned organizations follow. Agreed there are quite a lot of shady 'sweat shops' out there, but I think we should refrain from generalization and stereotyping as much as possible. As for third world education, again, let's not generalize . Not every institute/school in the US is another MIT, UC Berkeley, Stanford et al. Similarly, not every college in India is an IIT or DCE.

Sub standard pay - This is what the average wage structure looks like (someone on H1B and has around 6-8 years of experience) -

So, people who keep ranting about H1b folks working on a highly sub-standard pay, request you to please go for a reality check.

That said, I completely understand and agree that in times of dire needs, when a nation is in peril, it is just fair that local candidates be given fair opportunities and they have every right to demand what they deserve. But, at the same time, I hope people to be un-biased, have more knowledge of what the current situation is rather than re-iterating the same old stereotyped and biased concepts

I wish to agree with you but I sincerely doubt it based on following reasons.

1) Election year means lobbyists has more power because now they are walking with money and every politicians wanted it.

2) Historically speaking none of the election year has any major changes in immigration law.

3) With Supreme Court gave green signal to unlimited anonymous spending in politics I can't expect those companies going to keep quite. You and me has zero power now than what we had before. Now that politicians (crooks) don't have to tell you and me who paid how much for their election as companies can take cover under PAC.

4) No party has any negative stand on immigration other than illegal immigration. Reps wanted illegals to stay so that their corps can continue earn more and Dems wanted to give legal status to those illegals. Forget about employment based immigrants...none of the party has any stand against them.

Definitely commendable but laughable bill...at the most what I is going to achieve here from the law is...

"The provision is partially a response to the practice of companies taking millions in incentives from local taxpayers to open call centres in the US, only to offshore their operations a short time later and leave local communities devastated and still paying the bill," Bishop said.

My previous comment still holds good, this bill will do zero benefit when compared to the mess that needs fixing. You can't set off entire house fire with a gallon of water.

Both a wise man and not so wise man usually have same information with them but what makes the difference is the interpretation!

Why are you comparing labor laws of two countries??? They are not trading labors between them using same set of rules, what's the use of trading same commodity at the same rate? Its like I will sell you my car for $10K and then buy it from you for $10K

America took the initiative of producing and then selling goods for other countries. Here imp thing to note is that nobody asked America to do so but it was America's imitative. But by doing so they killed most of the local manufactures across the globe and increased the unemployment in those countries and in return provided a very small quota of 65k skilled workers across the globe in a year to come and work for those companies.

I understand that America has its own problem of unemployment but that has nothing to do with foreign workers coming here. I would say its mostly because of education system globally which promotes and makes you aspire to work for somebody rather than making others work for you. I see many elderly people even in this blog who wasted their exp and still want to compete with young generation by putting 'buzz' words in their resume, ideally they should have long back created multiple opportunities for the same people with whom they want to compete now.

I agree that immigration laws should be rewritten but to increase more labor inflow in America where companies are in race of producing more and more goods for rest of the world and to increase America's GDP. There should be a unskilled temporary visa (for blue collar job) along with skilled visa with a quota of at least 150k per year for each of the categories. Visa timelines should be flexible so that no company has to bend any rule to bring labor at odd times of the year. Current window doesn't make sense of applying visa in April and bring worker in Oct, this impacts the planning and hence companies bend the rule.

I know these views are not welcome in a blog where so many people just want to make their life safe and secure. But I strongly feel that is the truth. If you don't want foreign workers then the first thing you need to do is to stop exporting anything to them and let them manufacture them on their own. You cannot choose just one thing and leave the other ?

100% correct. The Indian bodyshops' (i.e., Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCl, etc.) status as "preferred (or only) vendor" for many U.S. companies are one of the significant employment barriers facing American STEM professionals today. Many U.S. companies (such as Merck in NJ and Microsoft in WA) have signed exclusive contracts with these Indian bodyshops; the client U.S. executives then wash their hands of having any responsibility for employee oversight or adherence to U.S. employment laws and regulations.

Many U.S. companies' exclusive contracts with the Indian bodyshops often prevent and/or impede American professionals from forming their own contracting companies/corporations and bidding for IT services work with the companies. For example, if you are a non-Indian owner of a consulting or contracting services company, try contacting Merck, Nationwide, Verizon, Chase, Microsoft, Adobe, Cicso, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, etc. to get information on how to become a preferred vendor and to participate in their bidding processes. As a non-Indian owner, you will be stonewalled, ignored and given false information to stall your progress. For non-Indians, some U.S. companies will also respond that their "preferred vendors" lists are frozen for the foreseeable future. Additionally, many of the Indian "tier 1" preferred vendor bodyshops will exclude and ignore American firms and will only sub-contract IT services work to the smaller Indian bodyshops (the majority of whom are located in NJ). Although many Indians deny (or distort) that these exclusionary and illegal vendor and hiring practices exist, this is Indian "casteim" in its purest form.

Similar to the anti-smoking litigation, there is great potential for significant legal action against U.S. companies and the Indian bodyshops if/when plaintiff lawyers and federal prosecutors in the U.S. recognize these price-fixing, anti-trust, anti-competitive, discrimination and other illegal issues and began filing federal class action and other enforcement actions in court. For example, there is no legitimate reason why U.S. companies (such as Merck) should be able to sign exclusive contracts with a foreign company for services performed in the U.S. while excluding qualified Americans from their bidding process. As numerous Americans with first-hand information have pointed out across the internet, many IT departments for American companies are composed of 90%+ Indian nationals.

Ideally, these issues should be in front of the federal judiciary (including the U.S. Supreme Court) instead of corrupt and paid-for U.S. politicians.

Interesting that you brought that up. Totally off topic but it reminded me of what happened to Israel when they forgot God who had prospered them from Exodus to Joshua. We see the decline from Judges all the way to 2 Chronicles. One of the judgements that God said would happen if they disobeyed and forgot His precepts was that they would be taken over by foreign powers instead of prospering and this is exactly what happened to them.

can't just flood theirs in return. Our backs are to the wall. The population figures make that clear. I don't expect the foreign workers to agree with me and that's why I don't even talk to them except to rebuke them in public when the occasion arises. My care and concern is for my fellow American breadwinners and taxpayers, who got up one morning and their livelihood was missing. Reply

You don't understand the plight of the job seeker in America.Yes, the big companies post a few openings, but they don't usually hire "off the street" any more.Most of their openings are not even posted.I learned this when I did contract work for American staffing firms (who hired American workers) back in the early to mid 90s before the H-1B took off).

Our bigger companies rely a lot on staffing feeder companies, preferred staffing vendors if you will.It is here that the bodyshops who place foreign workers have done what might be the worst damage to Americans:by becoming staffing vendors and getting in between us and the companies.They do this for both temporary project staffing and for the internal hiring placement process. Both of these types of jobs used to be avenues where Americans could sell themselves and grow careers, but both have been hijacked by the pipleline that profits by pumping foreign workers into our economy.

This is a process that companies like Infosys make their money from:providing foreign staff for domestic projects and processes.This has several effects over time.First, American staff lose out on work and immediate income.Then they lose out on career-building opportunity.Over time, some foreign workers get green cards and work their way up to be hiring managers and other positions of influence, which tends to cement a preference for the foreign worker pipeline within the corporation's culture.They've had over a decade to do this now, and this is a big factor in every "jobless" recovery we've had since.If you are a regular reader of boards like Immigration Voice, you'll see that many of them can still transition from job to job looking for better opportunies, can find jobs after being laid off, and get numerous offers for their skill sets.Meanwhile, American candidates are pounding the pavement, finding little to apply for, and when they finally do find an opening, their applications tend to vanish into HR black holes.This is true even with current degrees, current certifications, and current skill sets.

The American worker is not plugged into the staffing system that prevails any more.The foreign worker has a built-in support system that helps him get work in America.He is a valuable commodity to many entities.The American worker is currently scorned by the staffing pipeline.

We also need to avoid the non-sequitur that because some H-1Bs look like they are paid well, that this is true of all or most.Many are classified as being in jobs below what they are actually doing.Sometimes bodyshops skim off a lot of their pay (see the lawsuit against TCS over the L-1's tax refund checks).Generally speaking, an H-1B will make somewhat less than an American, enough less to more than cover the expense and hassle of bringing him here through the visa process.This seems like great pay to entering foreign workers, at least at first, because when they are young and new they typically don't have the financial obligations that the comparable American worker will probably have.

The foreign staffing firms have admitted and even bragged about how their staff is cheaper than us.There is too much information on the record from the horse's mouth for us to ignore the salary undercutting issue.

So, displacing and undercutting American breadwinners is not an incidental side effect of firms bringing a global labor pool to America. It is the central feature of their business model. Reply

It is what they are going to the WTO to try and safeguard.It is what they lobby our elected representatives to try and increase.

If you get up one morning and your car is missing, are you supposed to just shrug and accept the social and economic forces that led this to happening?There is no reason on earth that Americans should be told to just accept the loss of their livelihoods.If foreign workers are entitled to dream and lobby and organize, so are we, only more so, because this is our country and we can't just flood theirs in return.Our backs are to the wall.The population figures make that clear.I don't expect the foreign workers to agree with me and that's why I don't even talk to them except to rebuke them in public when the occasion arises.My care and concern is for my fellow American breadwinners and taxpayers, who got up one morning and their livelihood was missing.

Don, This is the real voice of people. If you really want to understnd or wants to go in deep please please,please open annoymus tip section where only you will find details. So many people even from India is is not speaking in openly, But this is the fact.Certain tribe is fraudster and almost everyone knows that, suffering for next generation future on American soil. Someway open link where people post to you lot of underground feedback. i am suspecting the way lot of post is disappear from the web is something big thing is going on. certain tribe..hint www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/nyregion/executives-are-charged-in-citytime-payroll-scandal.html

Yes. Your comment was disparaging. I've decided not to allow that stuff in my blog anymore. I've always wanted to keep the forum as open as possible, but I got fed up with the mean-spiritedness and people slinging mud at each other. If you need to do that, do it elsewhere.

I understand and agree as I don't dispute the comment made to shameonyou but I merely was defending the comments made in response to a previous comment nothing more. If you feel that what I said was disparaging in anyway I strongly suggest reading upward and think about what I wrote.

"As per the guidelines issued by Government, employment visa for foreign personnel coming to India for execution of projects/ contracts may be granted by Indian Missions to highly skilled and professionals to the extent of 1% of the total persons employed on the project subject to a maximum of 20. "

I wonder if they will mention this in their WTO complaint that their own guest worker program is far more restrictive than ours.

Since Don appears to be getting a bit emotional over the mud slinging I'll rephrase my response to try and satisfy him since it is his blog after all.

"While it's not my intent to digress from the topic..." - Unfortunately, this is exactly what you have done with this response but putting that aside the terms I used in my previous comment may be out of date but I am not looking to be politically correct. If I was interested in political terms I would be a politician but if you are that sensitive I'll be sure to try and give my response focusing on the topic as opposed to terminology as the thesis for my post.

"Infosys, TCS etc. don't really fit in the concept of 'sweat shops' with little or no corporate ethics - I never mentioned 'sweat shops' (although this word can be just as "pejorative" to people who are just trying to make a living..) nor does it make a difference as any company involved in illegal activity should be condemned but lets leave that for the investigation. At this point in time it doesn't look favorable for them so I would reconsider being so quick to defend there hiring methods simply by what you read on the internet. If we all believed everything we read I think the world would be in serious trouble.

"Not every institute/school in the US is another MIT"....

"So, people who keep ranting about H1b folks working on a highly sub-standard pay, request you to please go for a reality check." - I agree that not every institute/school in the US is another MIT so I will retract part of that statement but since you want to discuss reality lets do just that. People travel from all over the world to come to the US to gain a quality education so I have more faith in our institutions than in other parts of the world. I have had first hand experience where I have worked for a person who is here on a visa with no college education what so ever but yet they are my supervisor based on the experience that they have acquired. The sub standard pay is still an issue for new H1Bs but there are those who have gained the experience to make a decent salary which relates to what Dolores has mentioned with regard to the fact that this has been going on for over a decade. People have come here on a visa displacing American workers and at this point in time fresh graduates and others are losing career opportunities to put them in a position to make the salaries that you vehemently posted. I know of several who have/are applying for citizenship.

Dolores is correct about staffing vendors as I am well aware of how they operate as I have more than enough experience with them in this country when I struggled to find a job after finishing college and while looking for opportunities to advance my career which are few and far in between. I hope that is enough of a reality for you and perhaps maybe you will get your head out of the sand and not be so naive to believe everything you read.

Terry Preshaw, an immigration lawyer with officers in Everett and Vancouver, B.C., has represented foreign firms sending engineers to the United States - though not any Russians and not to Boeing.

"I personally don't see this as a situation where these foreign engineers are scabs taking away jobs from Americans. That's not what's happening here," she said.

Given that Boeing had outsourced work overseas, Preshaw said, "it ought to be a good idea to have some engineers from the foreign company hop on a plane, sit down with Boeing's engineers, gather the data, learn what they need to learn, and then go back and do the job they've contracted to do with Boeing."

Another immigration lawyer, Jan Pederson of Washington, D.C., said the line between "work" and "on-the-job training" is unclear.

"We lawyers often have trouble telling clients where the line is," said Pederson. "It's a big gray area."

A lawsuit filed last year in Alabama by a former employee of India software-outsourcing firm Infosys accuses that company of using the policy as a routine way to get around the H-1B restrictions. Infosys denies wrongdoing, but the case sparked a campaign against abuse of the B-1 system, led by Grassley.

"It appears that companies are using the policy as a creative way to get around the rigorous conditions that go along with employing an H-1B visa holder," Grassley said.

All I get is because getting H1 (which has at least minimum salary requirement) is harder now that every company sort to use B1 which as no salary requirement. Not sure whom we should blame...company has need to get those people to work for few months (right or wrong in this situation is entirely different debt) but there is no Visa to support such need. May be we should revisit the visa (A-Z) and remove unwanted and add much needed changes otherwise it will be trouble to the country as well as companies.

Government and law can say whatever they wanted but did the person/company complied to such orders is what makes the difference.

Even US has border control, ICE to crack down those illegals but still US has 12millions+ for decades. So having law and order in paper/news doesn't make anything to stop, only action from concern authority makes big difference.

That shows India woke up much earlier than US (which is still sleeping with the drug given my companies). Unless US re-writes every section of immigration law based on the new open world we live in we are not out of this mess.

Immigration should be benefit of the country and current law is not doing that.

To me, if I want my brothers and sisters and parents here then it will be better I go and stay there rather than expecting US to provide GC for my entire family tree. Any immigrants should be asset to the country not the other way.

Its apples to oranges comparison. In US, people on business visa are not supposed to be working. From the article, it says "Earlier, business visas were given to a wider range of occupations and employees were allowed to come for six months without paying taxes". So they have just corrected that.

"Under the amended rules, foreign clerical, secretarial and unskilled workers will not be given work visas in India, where economists say unemployment and under-employment is rampant." Does US even provide visa to people with such skills? NO.

"He said some expatriate workers were using business visas when they should have been on employment visas". Similar to the visa misuse case which is being discussed here.

So how does that make it a clampdown? Its more of correcting the rules. US has similar rules, but its not being implemented properly.

"According to AT&T they are not able to find right candidates...if US has more than 14million unemployed then AT&T is lying or some of the smart people in this comment section are lying...."

All US corporations are lying - they want cheap labor. And many of them like Pepsi, Citibank, and Adobe are themselves run by Indians who only want to give more US jobs to their countrymen. So of course they are going to lie. We've been hearing "shortages" for the past 14 years even though importing millions more people from India has destroyed 28 million jobs since 1998. How can 20 million Americans be out of work (many of whom are the people who created Silicon Valley long before India ever came here) and there still be a "shortage".

Stop the lies and conspiracy between corp. Amerika and India, Inc. to flood the US with more cheap labor.

Intresting blog site , open up certian community's fraud activities in US. This is mirror of the real world where so many people do not have stage to speak out, but they try to give hint from their frustraion. Like even after hard work , spending so many years for education and money they have to compete with frudster.

If the H-1B were really being used as it was designed, there would only be a couple of thousand per year at most (probably less) brought in per year, and almost none during economic downturns. The yearly cap doesn't even mean anything as universities and many non-profits can also file for them without it being counted against the cap. Also, there are extra visas handed out every year as a sort of systematic "oops" without any correction being made. This means closer to 100 thousand in a lean year. During the yers 2000-2003 it was around 200 thousand, even though we were in a sharp downturn for domestic STEM workers. All the work visas, H-1, L-1 and B, need to be sharply curtailed ASAP. They were never intended to facilitate a profitable business model for outsourcing companies.

As much as you feel the need to attack my character to try and prove your point instead of sticking to the topic as you said yourself that YOU digress is more than enough for me. As Don has said, if you want to write disparaging remarks etc etc comment else where. I understand how business operates and why staffing firms are used but perhaps you should read my comment again because that doesn't justify anything I wrote but rather promote undercutting as Dolores has discussed. You also complain about the terms I used because YOU consider them insulting and that they are out of date but yet politicians have used them in the past themselves so I don't believe they are as offensive as YOU want to portray them. If you want to claim I was making disparaging comments as Don likes to say but feels that yours are acceptable is more than enough for me to not comment any further on this blog. I could also stand here and give you my full educational background as well as experience but the fact that this is even something that is coming into question instead of making comments with actual facts proves my point about your own character. This makes you no different than the politicians who stand around complaining about their adversary during a campaign instead of sticking to the actual issues and providing solutions. Grow up. We can go back and forth all day complaining about terms that are used etc which is what politicians do throughout their whole campaign but at this point I am tired of listening to your pathetic insults and having to tolerate good ol Don allowing your comments while mine get removed as if what I say is any different than yours. I'm done with this blog and with you.

One last suggestion for you is that you look up the definition weasel word(s) as someone either has mentioned here or on a different blog.

Don, you really need to get your facts straight. Infosys might or might not have indulged in visa fraud- that is a matter of fed investigation; but i can guarantee that the stock plunge had nothing to do with this issue. It has more to do with their way of operations, always going for high margin deals when there is a global dip in IT spending and more focus on leaner operations.

I am an investor with a fetish for tech firms, and i can tell you from personal experience that this company is known for its frank and crisp communication to shareholders and excellent guidance on growth.

It doesn't require a politician's 'immaculate' vocabulary to say something that people won't find offensive. A best discussion is one that stays close to the topic without getting offensive and doesn't turn into a bike-shedding one.

I am not being naive or the frog in the well. I completely agree when it comes to demanding a law that enforces more strict rules while doling out visas, rules that make sure only the deserving ones (read people experienced in niche technologies, have profound knowledge of business domains, can read/write/speak in a clear, coherent and understandable manner) are being given visas.

However, TCS, HCL, Infosys and their ilks do not make up the entire H1b work force and there are a lot of people who actually possess the required skill sets to be in the 'high-paying' jobs.

Please try to understand that the cost-advantage factor pays out more for businesses that do not consider IT to be their core business . These are businesses that rely more on staffing vendors/outsourced service providers etc. since they are inclined to concentrating more on their core business functions/channelizing the money saved to other business areas. The scenario is vastly different when you are talking about product based companies. These are companies that consider IT to be their core business where the knowledge base of an employee is considered key and there is little-to-no difference when it comes to wages.

Lastly, it goes without a doubt that the top 20-25 colleges in the US perhaps provide the best infrastructure when it comes to nurturing innovation. Reason why they see an influx of international students. I was opposed to the idea of '3rd world education' since it carries a demeaning connotation and doesn't do justice to the premiere Indian institutes that consistently rank amongst the top 100 in the world.

To end the conversation, it is a commendable effort to uncover any illegal practice that mocks the laid-down labor rules/visa rules and bring the wrong doers to justice. However, the thoughts rather be constructive/realistic and unbiased.

If you put people under the gun, well basically you either create burnout, or you create a manager (is there any difference). Creativity requires comfort, some job security, support, and nurturing. If the people enjoy their work, they will put in the hours.

The employment model being implied here by "competitive"[sic] in the definition of corporations for anyone below the hierarchy of the top echelons is similar to gladiatorial combat. i.e "last man standing" . 15 years ago I remember different attitudes regarding engineering team management and enhancement. I guess that was too warm and fuzzy for our new management philosophy of "race to the bottom"

That's nice but who are you to tell others not to compete? You can go ahead and cooperate and not compete.....just don't insist others to live by your rules.

The very fact that you are complaining about foreigners is because you do not want to "cooperate" with them which is fine but let's be honest - we all compete at some level and we all avoid cooperating after a certain level.

And we all cooperate with team members most of the time so that's a no-brainer. Have you ever given up a job, a promotion, a pay hike etc for someone you don't know? If not, would you do that when the oppertunity presents itself? Then we'll see if you're really "cooperative"

You're saying that you're not competitive? When you apply for a job or a promotion, do you try to put your best foot forward or do you insist to the recruiter or manager that you as good as anyone else in the line?

One issue that is rarely addressed is the fact that Silicon Valley's population increase is SOLELY due to Asian and Indian immigration. The whole subject wasr brought up by baycitizens dot org pointing out that with the lack of immigration then Silicon Valley would have had a population decrease. Also pointed out was that employers liked employers liked immigrants because they are cheap.

If H1Bs were not allowed then Silicon Valley housing prices would drop such that current residents could afford to buy versus renting along with an overpopulated area becoming less populated.

'B1 in lieu of H' - this is not something new. This has been existing for few years now and treated as extreme cases and has to undergo higher scrutiny than regular B1. Even this is under cloud after the lawsuit came into play.

Competing with the rest of the world is one thing but competing with the rest of the world in my country is another thing all together.Andy Grove, co-founder of Intel had this to say in relation to that"Friedman is wrong. Startups are a wonderful thing, but they cannot by themselves increase tech employment. Equally important is what comes after that mythical moment of creation in the garage, as technology goes from prototype to mass production. This is the phase where companies scale up. They work out design details, figure out how to make things affordably, build factories, and hire people by the thousands. Scaling is hard work but necessary to make innovation matter."The scaling process is no longer happening in the U.S. And as long as that's the case, plowing capital into young companies that build their factories elsewhere will continue to yield a bad return in terms of American jobs.

Each Yahoo employee, earns likely more than their salary in profit. And we all feel so sorry for Yahoo, having to pay market wages for engineers. Yahoo, like all the profitable tech companies, says it can't find engineers. The truth is they can't find engineers at a price low enough to guarantee increasing profits.

Gee, instead of socking away 1 billion a year in profit, Yahoo could be socking away 2-3 billion a year in profit, if only we would allow unlimited H-1b, B-1, and L-1 visas. So that engineers in the U.S. are payed near minimum wage.

This is what it is all about people, even a cruddy tech, a backward tech company has yearly profit of 1 billion dollars. And won't pay a measley extra 5-10k (per employee average) to hire/train U.S. engineers versus seeking lower paid engineers abroad.

Look people everywhere, especially in India, are being scammed by corporations, who are holding onto hundreds of billions and stalling and stunting everyone's economic growth.

The problem with the world economy is clear, companies need to start competing with eachother. When workers are forced to compete, Companies get massively profitable, workers get shafted or thrown on the unemployment line.

Sending engineers back to their home countries, to create competitive businesses, is the right thing to do. It will increase employment, world wide, give a better value to consumers. Force these greedy companies to compete and offer more features.

Only competition between tech companies drives tech hiring. Competition between tech workers is also known as unemployment and product-mediocrity.

I hadn't seen that, Dolores. Full disclosure: Like you and parents everywhere, I love my kids very much, and one of my kids works at IBM, and is proud to work there. I wrote a post last year that was unfavorable towards IBM, and I later regretted it. I'm a husband and daddy first, a journalist someplace after that. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention, but I'll have to leave it to others to write about IBM.

You can't compete, no one can. There are 8 or more "qualified" replacements for every U.S. worker. If 8 people compete for 1 job, 7 are on the unemployment line.

If 6 of those seven, have any brains and knowledge, they will know that they should be looking elsewhere, a different job. Or perhaps to a different career, IF EVERY ONE of the scarce job offers has similar odds. And they want to make a living wage.

Or need to consistently make house payments.

No, you should not compete, you should always cooperate. If the markets doesn't want apples, sell oranges. Do you get it yet?

In my job, I don't compete with my co-workers. I look for ways to complement the work done by others. If I constantly competed with my co-workers we would not get anything done at work. In the past, I have had bosses tell me, we could replace you with anyone, and it is a de-motivator, in some cases it caused me to leave for other jobs. It is always the wrong thing to say, to any employee, that has any brains. Because it tells them there is no job security here, time to spend time, maybe company time, looking for a new employer.

In the hey day of Bell labs, IBM they understood this. They hired people and got them to collaborate/cooperate. That is how you spur innovation. They hired a variety of people, and supported them for years.

If you put people under the gun, well basically you either create burnout, or you create a manager (is there any difference). Creativity requires comfort, some job security, support, and nurturing. If the people enjoy their work, they will put in the hours.

Quickest way to kill brain cells is to be under constant stress. Stress hormones causes weak cells to die, oddly the brain is full of weak dependent cells. That should tell you all you all you need to know about how to treat the creative that work for you.

Very well said. The idea of "competition" implied is like having a 100 m dash between engineers. Whoever breaks the tape first is the winner. Product development is more like sailing a ship. Every engineer has a speciality, be it rigging the sails or working the navigation. Collaborative. I think unfortunately that spirit has long gone with the rise of cheap mass imported labor.

After a very long time I read an opinion which is written with great understanding. Where I agree with most of the things you mentioned I would like to give more inside picture to it.

Somewhere you have mentioned that "If instead of doing the same tasks that can be done by U.S. engineers, foreign engineering students would go home and create businesses"

This is where the main problem lies. I believe each of you are aware of the current employment crisis in America but few of you tend to find the cause of it and feels comfortable to put the blame on foreign workers.

When you say foreigners should go home and create businesses, I would like to make you aware about some forgotten facts. America is 15 trillion economy and full of opportunities! Now the sad part is that to maintain that and to be able to borrow same or more money from world bank-- America has to make sure other counties keep on buying goods from America, as the goods manufactured by America cannot be consumed in America alone. Just like there is no comparison between America's labor market with Indian labor market similarly there is no comparison between the capital between these 2 countries. American companies with deep pockets once entered in any country can easily kill the domestic companies over there. There is no way to compete with them when they bring capital with hardly 2% ROI and a domestic player from developing economy getting same at around 12%. Several times American companies have taken a hit on their profit just to make sure the local competitors in foreign countries close down. In laymen terms it's like exchange of surplus goods with surplus labors.

Then what went wrong? In my opinion something is missing in people of age 50+ in America, they either took things for granted or there was some kind to tough circumstances back in 80, 90s which prevented them from creating jobs now. Govt don't have a magic wand to create jobs, its the polices which favors startups and entrepreneurs. In such economy it's expected that you take your time to get settled and then start something new. I expect that atleast 10% of people who have worked for 25+ years should now be making others work for them but that is not the case and it seems and 99% are still competing with the thousands of other who get added to the economy chain every year. Unfortunately such laws, resources and policies don't exist in other countries because of several other valid or sometimes invalid reasons.

I believe each of you are aware of the current employment crisis in America but few of you tend to find the cause of it and feels comfortable to put the blame on foreign workers. I think there is a valid reason for the blame, when sometimes people like Vivek Wadhwa let such things slip out:"I was one of the first to outsource software development to Russia in the early '90s. I was one of the first to use H-1B visas to bring workers to the U.S.A.," Wadhwa says. "Why did I do that? Because it was cheaper."That tactic is even more lucrative for corporations today, says Wadhwa: "When you have a person on H-1B waiting for a green card, you have them captive for six to 10 years."

As a contractor, when I try to be competitive, I focus on the following:

1. Keep learning

2. Work hard

3. Stay on top of things

4. Stick to values

5. Showcasing work portfolio and knowledge

6. Showcasing value for money

7. Improve soft skills

Q1. Do you find anything wrong with the above aspects of being competitive?

Q2. What do you really mean by "being competitive" which you say people should avoid? You are not "competitive" as per your own words. So what do you "not" do to be competitive?

Everyone I've worked with in different teams are pretty cooperative and exchange knowledge freely. I even provide free .Net training after work hours to folks from my customer's office who are old school VB. I mainly do it for fun and also because those guys are interested in learning to take new responsibilities but it also compliments my brand value to the customer too. Being competitive does not make you uncooperative. They are not mutually exclusive and can compliment each other. If you have techies who are adverse to knowledge sharing, it speaks more of their insecurity rather than comfortability.

>>But if I have a skill that is different from what you have, does that mean we are competing? No, I am avoiding the competition.

But that's not the case with the reality of things is it? That's why Don wrote an earlier post (www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/tennant/cold-hard-fact-you-re-not-indispensable-at-work/?cs=50029) that touched on this attitude where people think they are not indespensible at work and that no one else can take their place. It is not outragious to think that there are Americans out there that can offer your employer a good reason to hire them instead of you. It's not outragious to think that if the job market tightens, someone raelly good and better could apply for a position you hold. It could also happen within the same company and need not be an outside hire.

But you are cooperative right and against competing between workers? What if this American with your skills and capability applies for a position you work for? Will you "cooperate" and let him take your job?

If yes, you are truly cooperative.... and soon to be unemployed.

If no, then you have already started competing with him and will make a good case directly or indirectly to your employer to keep you instead of hiring the new guy.

Yesterday one of my colleague got an job offer from a company in TN with salary $95k+ (moving from VA to TN) excluding benefits for a team lead position...he was earning $85k+ in VA ....without shortage in resource no way a company in TN (no income tax!!!!) will pay that much salary.

According to cost of living comparison a person earning $85k in VA can expect $53k salary in TN.

If you move from Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA to TN....

Groceries will cost: 12%less

Housing will cost: 71%less

Utilities will cost: 16%less

Transportation will cost: 14%less

Healthcare will cost: 9%less

By the way he was close to 8yrs experience and expertise in MS technologies also he has no special skill which could make him niche skilled person.

He is on H1, so immediate cost to move him to TN and H1 cost will easily add up to $6k. And he was interviewed by only Americans and the position was open for past 3 months !!!

Instead of wasting time in bashing others and companies in blogs...better spend your time in sharpen your skills and be the best in your field. For right resource companies are always ready to pay right salary because companies know that if they don't pay properly they will move on....

good managers in the U.S. will spend years studying the problem and looking for ways to foster cooperation among team members. You should explore what the structure, and units of cooperation really are. Where we place the competition and where we place the cooperation is critical to the rate at which productivity/opportunity is increased. My point is that the competition should be at the corporate level, if you want to increase employment in the U.S. "Have you ever given up a job, a promotion, a pay hike etc for someone you don't know? If not, would you do that when the opportunity presents itself? Then we'll see if you're really "cooperative"" You need to expand your mind on this subject."You're saying that you're not competitive?"I would say I am is a person who looks for ways to apply himself, that others are not seeing, and if needed I will do the mundane work (often eschewed by others) tasks that need to be done to keep the project going. In essence I am cooperative, and want to be a team member. If in the process I manage to pick up skills, either through work or in my own free time, that differentiate me from my co-workers, awesome. But if I have a skill that is different from what you have, does that mean we are competing? No, I am avoiding the competition. The true actions and units that I do/create are going to be different from what you create. You can no more score me versus you in this area, then you can compare apples to oranges.But if you are measuring me in units of cooperation, man I will beat you to pulp on that one. But I won't leave a mark and you will never feel a thing. But it will register in your mind.Alone, I can't compete with my company's competition. Think of all of us engineers as soldiers, on a battlefield, we are nothing without our fellow soldiers. We can't compete in that situation. We can't afford to think we are, alone, some sort of Rambo. We engineers, "we happy few", we are the soldiers. We are special in that our bullets are our ideas, our eyes catching mistakes or errors, our ability to concentrate on a problem, and manage the variables on paper, computer, or in our head to see which solution has the best chance of succeeding, we make the ideas compete, we test the product and not each other. But in the end, we are usually on a team of many such engineers, who are also engaging themselves at a similar level, but in a different area or subject matter needed for the project."When you apply for a job or a promotion, do you try to put your best foot forward or do you insist to the recruiter or manager that you as good as anyone else in the line? "Let's see what percentage of my career has been spend looking for a job? Probably about 12 weeks of the last twenty years. Looking for a job should be a small part of your career, that 's what makes a productive, happy, engineer. If it ever gets like acting, all audition and no pay, I'll switch careers, and engineering will be my hobby. If you want to go ahead an knock your brains out, your are welcome to waste your irreplaceable lifetime doing Reply

Here's the problem with competition, in the workplace. It duplicates effort. It leads to situations where people refuse to specialize, instead they waste time proving to the boss they can do another person's job. Work, even and especially engineering, is a cooperative task. It requires specialization, and a variety of team members willing to develop and share their specialized talents.

If you look at areas where there are more workers than jobs, say professional sports, acting, singing, dancing, comedy, or Miss America. The competition is heavy and everyone is duplicating each others operation. With the typical and most common operation being audition followed by director saying "Next". There is a tremendous waste of human work potential. Very little productive (making food, shelter, teaching...) gets done . But you might say, well these are past times. These past times result in a huge waste of human work potential, they are a decadent waste, why on Earth would we want to waste our engineering talent by making competition for an engineering job as fierce as the competition on "American Idol"?

"The very fact that you are complaining about foreigners is because you do not want to "cooperate""

I am not complaining about working with people from other countries. I do this routinely, in my job (of more than a decade), and I actually enjoy it. I love other cultures. And I'll tell you right now, I love India.

My issue is with the duplication of worker skills via the Visa process. Simply bringing in workers with the same skills, or skills that can be easily developed in say our existing U.S.population, is a waste of potential. There's a lot of talk about money and profitability, this is just one part of our economy. The most important thing about our economy is the preservation, enhancement of Opportunity.

Opportunity, when high, preserves the value of workers. Opportunity, when low, wastes the most precious and irreplaceable resource we have.

Our time on this Earth.

If instead of doing the same tasks that can be done by U.S.engineers, foreign engineering students would go home and create businesses. More opportunity would be created, here in the United States and in the Foreign country. Take the battle between SAP and Oracle. SAP based in Europe, competes with Oracle. SAP forces Oracle to add more features to its software to match Oracle. Both Oracle and SAP are massively profitable, each company has socked away billions of dollars. If SAP did not exists, do you think Oracle's software would be as good? Probably not, and as a result Oracle would (likely) not have have hired as many engineers.

Simple as that, Competition at the Corporate level, drives hiring. Competition at the worker level, results in unemployment.

"With them which is fine but let's be honest - we all compete at some level and we all avoid cooperating after a certain level."

You need to think about things and get your units straight. So that you can see the cause and affect relationships. You have the seed of truth in "We all compete at some level" and "We all avoid cooperating after a certain level". Reply

The software dev, and IT areas require a lot of communication and cooperation, I don't see competition improving this. In fact, competition, might damage such an environment. People need to trust and get along first, and not be afraid to bring their ideas to the table. The Corporate level is where we want the competition to be fierce, because that will drive innovation, hiring, and cut into the massive earnings being socked away in foreign back accounts.

"And we all cooperate with team members most of the time so that's a no-brainer."

It's not as simple as "no-brainer", good managers in the U.S.will spend years studying the problem and looking for ways to foster cooperation among team members. You should explore what the structure, and units of cooperation really are. Where we place the competition and where we place the cooperation is critical to the rate at which productivity/opportunity is increased.

My point is that the competition should be at the corporate level, if you want to increase employment in the U.S.

"Have you ever given up a job, a promotion, a pay hike etc for someone you don't know? If not, would you do that when the opportunity presents itself?Then we'll see if you're really "cooperative""

You need to expand your mind on this subject.

"You're saying that you're not competitive?"

I would say I am is a person who looks for ways to apply himself, that others are not seeing, and if needed I will do the mundane work (often eschewed by others) tasks that need to be done to keep the project going. In essence I am cooperative, and want to be a team member. If in the process I manage to pick up skills, either through work or in my own free time, that differentiate me from my co-workers, awesome. But if I have a skill that is different from what you have, does that mean we are competing? No, I am avoiding the competition. The true actions and units that I do/create are going to be different from what you create. You can no more score me versus you in this area, then you can compare apples to oranges.

But if you are measuring me in units of cooperation, man I will beat you to pulp on that one. But I won't leave a mark and you will never feel a thing. But it will register in your mind.

Alone, I can't compete with my company's competition. Think of all of us engineers as soldiers, on a battlefield, we are nothing without our fellow soldiers. We can't compete in that situation. We can't afford to think we are, alone, some sort of Rambo. We engineers, "we happy few", we are the soldiers. We are special in that our bullets are our ideas, our eyes catching mistakes or errors, our ability to concentrate on a problem, and manage the variables on paper, computer, or in our head to see which solution has the best chance of succeeding, we make the ideas compete, we test the product and not each other.

But in the end, we are usually on a team of many such engineers, who are also engaging themselves at a similar level, but in a different area or subject matter needed for the project.

"When you apply for a job or a promotion, do you try to put your best foot forward or do you insist to the recruiter or manager that you as good as anyone else in the line?"

Let's see what percentage of my career has been spend looking for a job? Reply

Probably about 12 weeks of the last twenty years. Looking for a job should be a small part of your career, that 's what makes a productive, happy, engineer. If it ever gets like acting, all audition and no pay, I'll switch careers, and engineering will be my hobby. If you want to go ahead an knock your brains out, your are welcome to waste your irreplaceable lifetime doing so. Reply

Apr 21, 2012 2:28 AMSealTeam6 SealTeam6
says:

More trouble ahead as DHS starts looking at Infosys:

US homeland security department reviews Infy's employer eligibilitynfosys, already fighting a legal battle in the US for alleged violation of B-1 visa norms, may be heading for another trouble in that country.The city-headquartered information technology services company said the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was reviewing the company's employer eligibility verifications', after it found significant percentage' of errors in Forms I-9 of some of its employees working in the country.

Again, my fellow Americans: please feel free to ignore anyone who tries to make it sound like the current poor job market for Americans is in any way the fault of American workers. We were sold out, plain and simple. A lot of lies have been told, and continue to be told. Don't fall for it, keep your heads up, and keep up the march to get our country back. I was talking to a fellow worker once, and she was telling me how when she was a young girl in Saint Louis, you had to be some kind of bum not to have a job. there were all sorts of companies, and everyone was hiring. What happened? Globalism, that's what. We got sold out by the 1% so they could have more profit. They didn't want to share so much as a penny with their fellow Americans. Yes, it's that evil. The rest of the world outnumbers us so much that it doesn't matter how good we are any more. We need to develop an economy of localism, and consider the local economic ecology of things like trade policies and visa regulations. We can't leave this to the 1%. We know what they'll do, every time.

I make more than most of the contracting jobs I see out there in the valley, and I have benefits.

I believe you should "Work Smart", not necessarily "Work Hard". Many times on the job you will find yourself doing unnecessary repetitive tasks, if these can be automated, do so.

I think I have made it very clear why you should be cooperative and not competitive at work. And why the competition needs to again be shifted to the larger business entity.

Corporations are socking away billions right now. Even Yahoo saves more than a billion dollars per year. This is occurring because they are not facing enough competition at the corporate level. Its a great IPO season, companies are way over valued. Yet still there is massive unemployment in the U.S.

Further, sending graduates back home, would spur them to create businesses at home. Employing more people there, and not taking up mundane IT jobs here. Eventually creating business that want to expand overseas. Hey, I was employed by a Japanese Electronics Giant for several years. If you come to America, hire Americans, don't use the Visa system as your predominant method of filling jobs on U.S. soil (as InfoSys and the other outsourcing companies do).

The point is....American companies operating overseas hire from the local labor force....thus creating jobs in those countries..... where as companies like Infosys bring people into the US to work here illegally....and do not hire Americans....that is the gist of the problem.

US Department of Homeland Security investigates Indian outsourcer Infosys for visa errors'MUMBAI, India - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is investigating Infosys for visa "errors," adding to the Indian outsourcing company's legal woes over U.S. visa irregularities and sending its shares down 4 percent Monday.

I'm not sure about these cheap tricks by non-american companies but there is biggest fraud of all is going on for past 4 years in US. Pushing existing resource to work more hours than they are supposed to and that to without any additional pay.

I worked 125hrs (bi-weekly) on average for past 4yrs instead of 80hrs. Guess what my company gained by not paying me extra hours so there is cut in federal revenue, state revenue and those extra $$$ spent on my local economy. Like me there are 100s of resources in my company gets exploited every month.

If federal government remove the restriction of paying extra hours my company have to hire 50 more resources to continue their operation or at least it has to pay everyone of us extra $$$ for the hard work we put in. I'm sure this is the case with most of the IT industry and which is the mother of all frauds and companies are allowed legally to exploit IT resources.

Fix this exploitation would get millions of new jobs for fresh grads and unemployment in IT industry will go down to 0% in few months.

It is ironic that the IT industry that defines the workforce of the 21st Century wants to roll back the working conditions to that of the 19th Century, before the more humane working conditions of 8 hour workdays became the norm. Back then working 6-7 days a week, 10-12 hrs a day was considered to be the work week. Is this what people want ? After a 100 years of trying to improve working conditions ? Guess human nature is always trying to exploit and bypass the law.

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